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SHAMANIC DIRECTIVES FOR ADDRESSING BOREDOM

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

EXODUS 20:8–11 

SHAMANIC TEACHING

It is important to take time to do nothing, and even more important to become bored from time to time. Think of boredom and doing nothing as a necessary process of composting for action yet to come. Christian shamans know what to do with boredom. They embrace it, play with it, and stretch it with absurd directives. Shamans wait patiently until boredom shows up in their lives. Then they catch it and make it an object of teasing and trickster experiments. Boredom is easy to mess with. Doing anything with boredom is better than being bored with boredom. Learn to be interested with the boredom that comes into your life. See it as an opportunity for radical play.

DIRECTIVE: MAKING THE UNINTERESTING INTERESTINGLY UNINTERESTING

Think of an inexpensive religious product that does not interest you. Take a friend or family member to the store where this product is sold and try to convince this person that you’re very interested in it. After a suitable period of time, tell your friend you’re not going to buy it. Explain that, among other things, you are practicing saying “no” to spiritual things you don’t really need.

Considerations

• What makes some religious items uninteresting? Write down your answer and leave it near the item at the store.
• Make a list of your top ten uninteresting religious items or symbols. Using your imagination, make the list interesting.
• Make an interesting “no” by drawing it, sculpting it, or symbolizing it in any way you see fit. Mail it to an uninteresting object. For example, mail it to “The Boring Picture on aisle 3, shelf 2, Christian Religious Supplies, 1200 Thomas Street, Anytown, Anystate.”
• Think of something uninteresting about an interesting religious object, and something interesting about an uninteresting object.
• Place an interesting religious article in the least interesting place in your house. Notice whether the spot becomes more interesting, whether the object becomes less interesting, or both.

DIRECTIVE: THE RITUAL OF REVERSAL

When you are absolutely stuck in the quicksand of boredom, perform the following shamanic ritual:

1. Lie down on your bed the wrong way, with you head resting on the end of the bed and your feet on the pillow. Do this for one minute.
2. Slide out of the bed and lie on the floor. Do not stand up.
3. Crawl to your front door.
4. Walk around the outside of your home or apartment, keeping your head turned to the right.
5. Walk the opposite way around your home or apartment with your head turned to the left.
6. Reenter your front door.
7. Crawl backward to your bed.
8. Lie down on your bed and be still for one minute.
9. Say “Amen.” Then say “Awomen.”
10. Sit up and think about how three of your friends would react if they watched a videotape of what you just did.
11. See if you can persuade a friend to do this ritual with you. Make a date to perform it.

Considerations

• Select the part of this ritual that was strangest for you to perform. For a week, do only this part of the ritual once a day. See if the task becomes stranger or less strange with practice.
• Eliminate three parts of the ritual. Consider this a fine-tuning.
• Choose one part of the ritual that you will repeat twice.
• Experiment with the order of the actions.
• Predict what your friend will choose regarding the above considerations. Try out what they choose. Do you like their choices better than yours?

DIRECTIVE: MIXED-UP READINGS

Read the first half of the first chapter of any spiritual book. Read the second half of the first chapter of another spiritual book. Next, go to the library and read only the last pages of several spiritual books you believe you will probably never read.

Tell someone about a book you wish you could write based on the information you gathered in the previous reading assignments. You can make up or add whatever you need for the story to make sense. Keep trying to tell the story to different people until you believe you have developed an interesting spiritual teaching.

Considerations

• Try reading the first half of the first chapter of a spiritual book, followed by the second half of the first chapter of a book that has nothing to do with spirituality. Add randomly selected sentences from randomly selected books. Mix them up and then try to make the story make sense.
• Take three sentences from any three books and string them together. Consider it a riddle for a Christian shaman to ponder.
• Ask other people to each send you a sentence from one of their favorite books. Combine these to create a spiritual teaching.
• Start collecting sentences that make no sense from books. Write these sentences down and carry them with you. Meditate on them, and wait for interesting meanings and connections and insights to emerge. On one day of the week, pretend this is an extremely important exercise. On the very next day, pretend it is utter nonsense. Continue alternating your belief about this work.

DIRECTIVE: BEDROOM LABYRINTH

Take a photograph of your left shoe, then take a photograph of your right shoe. Go to a copy shop and make twenty-five copies of each photograph.

Pin up or tape these copies on your bedroom wall, as if an invisible person wearing your shoes were walking up the wall. Continue putting up these footprints so they travel all the way around your room—up one wall, across the ceiling, down the other wall, across the floor, and round and round again.

When you finish walking around your room, sit in the middle of the room and stare at the footprints. Fantasize about what it would be like to actually be able to walk this way.

Show these footprints to your friends and tell them you are inventing a new form of shamanic practice. Call it the bedroom labyrinth. If you find someone who expresses a genuine interest in what you have done, ask if you can photograph their shoes too. Repeat the procedure and add their footprints to your room.

Considerations

• When you have placed another person’s steps in your room, imagine walking in their shoes and wait to see how long it takes for you to gain a new understanding of this person.
• Change from shoe images to hand prints. Imagine walking around your room on your hands.
• Draw yellow lines on pieces of paper so as to make a road on your wall. Imagine traveling on it in a tiny vehicle.
• Place strings all around your room. Imagine gliding along those strings.
• Take a photograph of your room and carry it with you. Continue your imaginary journeys in other places.

DIRECTIVE: POSTCARD NONSENSE

Purchase ten postcards. On each card, write a sentence of nonsense. You may make up your own nonsense or choose from the following selections:

“It’s time to invert the sound that slaps our saint.”

“May your day fall over the hole behind the heavens.”

“What isn’t known can’t be blamed for the four-cornered cross.”

“Yellow is the shape of my friend’s best prayer.”

“I met a blade of grass that kicked a vision right between your career.”

“Now is the past her future forgot to forgive.”

“‘What’ is the name of a retired ‘why.’ ”

“Never allow an ever to stammer your taste for wonder.”

“If you read that, this will submerge into the face of the spiritually absent.”

“There will always be a b in the buzz of a silent bee.”

“Have a day that has forgotten its place in the dreams of lesser gods.”

“Today is the beginning of all that won’t allow the great will of thrill.”

“How do you throw an expectation into the machines that bark?”

“I love eating nonsense sentences on behalf of your neighbor’s best garden.”

“Do you find the smell of sense in the unscented sense of sensible nonsense?”

“This is the end of what began before all else ended our other beginnings.”

Mail these postcards of nonsense to your friends. Make sure each card is signed, “Christian Shaman-in-Training.” Wonder about what your friends will wonder about when they look at your card.

Considerations

• Consider why you haven’t sent nonsense before.
• Say a nonsense prayer.
• Make a nonsense pledge to your partner.
• Prepare a nonsense meal.
• Go on a nonsense weekend getaway.

DIRECTIVE: KINGDOM OF BOREDOM

On a small piece of paper write the letters b-o-r-e. On another piece of paper write the letters d-o-m. Place these pieces of paper in front of you on a table surface and place one thumb on each piece. Move your thumbs in a circular pattern, swirling the pieces of paper around. As you do this, read the following statement aloud as loudly as you can:

The kingdom of boredom is ruled by a bore. The bore is not a dumb bore, but a king without a holy boar.

Repeat this ritual once an evening throughout the next week. The next week, you are to gather as many photographs or drawings of hogs (or boars) as you can, making as large a collection as possible. You will need at least twenty-five pictures. When you have finished making your collection, sit down again with your pieces of paper—the b-o-r-e and the d-o-m. Swirl them with your thumbs and say:

Now the king has some boar. The king wasn’t really a bore, nor was the boar a bore. It’s the kingdom that’s troubled, for it’s not yet part of the spiritual lore.

Purchase a map of the world and select a spot in which to locate this imaginary kingdom. Hang the map on your wall and place a colored pin or flag marker on the spot you choose. On that spot, write the name of the kingdom, Boredom.

Considerations

• Consider whether heaven has bores.
• How might heaven be boring if, in fact, it is boring? What could you do to make it less boring, should the opportunity present itself?
• Make up other imaginary kingdoms and mark them on your map.
• Imagine that God has allowed you to create seven different heavens. What would they be? Name them and mark them on your map.
• Imagine that heaven allows its members to take a vacation every once in a while. Where would you go? Make sure this place is circled on the map and labeled “vacation from heaven.”

DIRECTIVE: PRAYING WITH A BORING BOOK

Go to your local public library and randomly walk through the book stacks. Without thinking or looking at what you’re choosing, select ten books from different places in the library. Sit down with these books and, without looking at a single page, choose the book you believe will be the most boring. Check it out and take it to your home.

Place this book that you assume is boring on top of your television so it is clearly visible. Before you turn on the television, open the book and immediately say, “Dear Lord.” Read one sentence aloud, then say, “Amen.” Perform this ritual every time you do anything with the television set. If you turn it off, change the channel, or adjust the volume, you must say, “Dear Lord,” read a sentence aloud, and end with “Amen.”

Do this for two weeks. At the end of this time, write a letter to the author of the book. Tell the author what you did with the book and describe any interesting experiences you had as a result of this task. Enclose the letter in the middle of the book and return it to the library.

Considerations

• Consider boredom as compost that is necessary to fertilize the more interesting experiences.
• Plan a way to be bored that you haven’t experienced before.
• Do you find the word “boredom” boring? What letter could you add to the word to make it more interesting?
• Who is the most bored person you know? Who is the least bored? How would they get along? Might one influence the other? Consider arranging a party to which both are invited.
• Choose one day of the month (or half a day) that you devote to being bored.

DIRECTIVE: WEIRD SPIRITUAL CALLS

Select any or all of the following phone tasks to carry out:

1. Call a pet store and ask if they sell biblical whales.
2. Call a drugstore and ask if they sell holy water.
3. Call a university’s department of religion and ask if they have any spiritual visions.
4. Call a library and ask if they will read a Bible verse to you over the phone.
5. Call the manager of a religious bookstore and ask if they have any books on Christian shamanism.
6. Call a church and ask if God will be attending their next service.
7. Call a funeral home and ask if they have ever seen a ghost.
8. Call a music store and ask the person who answers to tell you his or her favorite spiritual chord.
9. Call a bank and ask if they give any money away to the poor.
10. Call a telephone operator and ask whether he or she believes people are becoming more or less spiritual on the phone these days.
11. Call someone in your family and explain about all these phone calls.
12. Call a friend and tell him or her about your conversation with your family member.
13. Call a newspaper and ask to whom you should submit a story about your calls.

Considerations

• Write down all of the phone numbers you called in this exercise. Place them inside your Bible for twenty-four hours and then decide what needs to be done with them. Pray for direction.
• Write down the three most interesting responses you received. Write them in your Bible as if they were newly discovered verses.
• Write down the name of the person or place from which you received the least interesting answer. Make a special prayer for this person or place and call them again in a year.
• How do you think each person would have responded if they believed you were an agent of God?
• How do you think you would respond if you received these calls? Write down your responses to each of the questions.

DIRECTIVE: BOREDOM SURVEY

Make your own spiritual survey on boredom. Create a list of at least ten questions about boredom. Do not ask normal questions, such as what makes people get bored, how often they get bored, what they do about it, and so forth. Instead, explain that you are conducting a spiritual investigation of boredom and ask unusual questions, such as the following:

1. Do you know the historical origin of the word “boredom?”
2. If you were never bored, would you get bored with never getting bored?
3. What time during the night is the least boring?
4. I’m trying to get more boredom in my life. Do you have any suggestions?
5. Do you think anyone ever taught a course on boredom?
6. Are there therapists who specialize in treating boredom?
7. What is the most boring word in the English language?
8. Show me how you look when you get bored.

Considerations

• Could this kind of research lead you to becoming an interesting authority on the subject of boredom?
• What was your most boring question on boredom? The most interesting?
• Find three people who are fluent in another language. Have them teach you a foreign word for boredom. Chose the foreign word that sounds the most interesting. Stop using the English word “boredom” and instead use the foreign word you have chosen.
• Invent an alternative word for boredom, like “yaaadoo.” Think of this word when you feel bored.
• What color is most boring to you? Go to a hardware store and get a paint sample card of that color. Carry it with you. Leave it at the next boring situation you are in.

DIRECTIVE: THE WORLD’S MOST BORING RITUAL

With a group of shamanically oriented friends, try to perform the world’s most boring ritual. Plan and create the most boring feast, the most boring icons and decorations, the most boring attire, the most boring music, and the most boring things to say and do.

Hire someone to videotape the ritual. All of you must keep in mind that if someone is seen having fun, laughing, or smiling, the ritual is failing. You may have to have designated individuals who patrol the ritual on the lookout for anyone who isn’t bored. Anyone who is not bored may have to go to a penalty area for a few minutes. Remember this must be the most boring ritual ever experienced on planet Earth.

Considerations

• Send out an invitation that begins, “You are invited to the world’s most boring ritual . . .”
• Ask people for advice on how to make the ritual boring.
• Write dictionary definitions of boredom on the napkins.
• Make this an annual event. Perhaps perform it on the holiday you all find most boring.
• Consider making boring masks for people to wear.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

When you’re bored, do something really different (but be smart and don’t get into serious trouble). Boredom is an invitation to stretch your self into a new space. It is a calling to be creative with your stuck situation. Nothing’s happening when you’re bored so no time will be wasted if you try a little experimentation. Appreciate boredom as a time out to tinker with yourself and the situations you are in. Say thank you to your times of boredom. Imagine that they are a vacation from predictable behavior. They free you to improvise with imagination. Go ahead, get bored and let the trickster run free. Boredom is the ding-a-ling-a-ling for the trickster within you to wake up and stir things up. Become a Jesus coyote. Pray an odd prayer, make up a weird hymn, and dance down an imaginary church aisle with a very strange movement whenever boredom throws a party.